Rumor: Dragon Age Netflix Series In Development

Or they could do a series of self contained stories, one each episode, a bit like Tevinter Nights. Apart from Callback (Sutherland's Crew + others) and Dread Wolf Take You (Charter and Solas), that had only a minimal amount of cameos of familiar characters from the games: Dorian was the only one who had been a companion; Gatt and Genitivi were bit part NPCs; Sidony from multi-player and Maevaris as a major player from a comic and mentioned on the War Table. There were also Viago and Tia who apparently were the Crows who featured in Deception but were so little developed in that comic that you wouldn't readily know that unless you asked (as people did).

I never watched black mirror, but the idea of every episode being a different set of characters from the next one is decidedly not my cup of tea. I got what enjoyment I could from TN *because* I'm so attached to the world that I don't care what 2D puppet they throw up for five minutes of reading in front of me, I'll probably read it. But how would a intentionally non cohesive story grab more than niche attention?

Black mirror was no Game of Thrones or The Office.

It's not "intentionally non-cohesive", each story is entirely separate, they have nothing to do with each other.

Sure, except you're then assessing Black Mirror and other anthologies on the merits of how they work as a single story, which they can't, because that's not what they are.

It's like saying "The Collected Works of Dorothy Parker is no Lord of the Rings or Wheel of Time". Of course it's not, the comparison is meaningless.

I agree with a lot here (though I haven't watched Bridgerton so I've no opinion there), however I think your main issue might be missing the forest for the trees a bit. Just because the story isn't being told in the medium you first encounter it, doesn't mean the source material will suffer for it. Two examples come to mind. Halo and Hannibal Lector.

The Halo games are famously underestimated for their narrative density. That is certainly by design by the developers, however, because as rich and expansive as the Halo universe is, the games are shooters. Stopping for a lengthy custscene every five minutes  bogs down the games inertia, no matter how compelling the narrative is. So Microsoft started selling books to expand the narrative. And that worked very well. As an example, the 'Foreunner Saga' is by any measure just brilliant. And vital to the narrative. But it doesn't have a place in the games. That part of the narrative is best served in another medium: Novels. 

Hannibal Lector is a very good non video game related example of narratives sometimes being best served expanding beyond its original medium. 'Red Dragon', the first of the Lector books, introduces an inspector that obviously had a very complicated history with Dr. Lector. But the story wasn't about that history. It was about that character dealing with a different antagonist. Being one of the only people in the world capable of dealing with this new antagonist because of his experiences with Dr. Lector. And as curious as anyone who'd read 'Red Dragon' might have been about Dr. Lectors relationship with the inspector, ultimately the overall narrative was better served for starting after the climax of that interaction. Doing so left room for three more novels, five movies (I count 'Man Hunter', which was a better film adaptation of the 'Red Dragon' book then the 'Red Dragon' movie was) and what I think has become the narrative's crowning jewel, the 'Hannibal' television series. Which both finally delivered on exploring the complicated history of the inspector and Dr. Lector, and roundly eclipsed it's already brilliant source material in quality. Watching the series, having already read (and from accounts I've gotten from other viewers that went back to read the novels for the first time because of the show) the source material enriched both very handily. Even though the books are plainly very dated. Just selecting a television series as the medium was deeply insightful choice. The inspector's defining trait is his visual acuity, recall and empathetic imagination. The books, of course, demonstrate that those traits can be captured in writing, but the television program resoundingly proved that that medium was best suited for presenting that character.  

So, although I understand your concern about narrative that would otherwise be in the game, being shunted out of the game and into a different medium, I would say so far as I can tell, that hasn't happened. So far, stuff that should be in the games, have been in the games, but there was leftover material that didn't fit in the game so they've used it in other forms of media. I think that formula can work, as long as EA, Bioware, and now Netflix properly commit to putting the narrative first, even before the games.

I'm glad I got to 11k likes, even though it's hilarious how much it doesn't matter on a practically dead forum. So I feel like spreading the love with giving people some likes.

But back to the topic, I think that a Dragon Age series could work, but I wouldn't want it to touch the games. Maybe include some characters from the games, but I'd want it to focus on cutthroat politics. I want to see Tevinter's Magisterium conflicts, or Orlais's Great Game. I do not want to see just a watered down adaptation of, say, Origins with a Warden that is very much not my Warden. DA2 I could maybe deal with an adaptation of because Hawke is a bit more a set character than the Warden or the Inquisitor.

Neither is Dr Who. Now that has gone through the various ways you can make a series. When it first came out some 60 years ago each story ran over several weeks but eventually it would reach a conclusion and they would move on to the next one. The only on-going factor in the series was the Doctor himself and to a lesser extent his companions, although once it became established as a franchise naturally not all of them wanted to keep going indefinitely, so they were written out. Then the original doctor began to feel his age and that is when they came up with the idea of him regenerating to account for his sudden change in appearance when a new doctor took over. The rest of the formula was still the same until the format became somewhat tired and it was shelved.

After a break of many years, the BBC decided to bring back Doctor Who. Initially each episode was a stand alone story. This necessitated a longer running time than with the original series but the quality of the story telling and acting meant they were able to hold the audience. It was a great success even thought the only constant, once again, was the doctor and his companion(s). However, there was a link between them all, the significance of which was revealed in the final episode of that first series.

Finally, there was a shift back to the extended over several episodes story telling. Sometimes this would be one actual story spread over more than one episode; sometimes, rather as with the first set of stories in the revamped franchise, there were individual, stand alone stories containing clues that would have a pay off at the end of the series.

Any or all of these types of storytelling could be used in a TV series called Dragon Age without it actually turning into another GoT and also keeping the stories totally independent of what was going on in the games or drawing from characters in them. This would be made easier by the fact that only a handful of people apparently know about Solas and his plan for the world, so it is plausible that most of the inhabitants of Thedas are doing their own thing within the setting, blissfully unaware of their imminent demise, as was the case with the majority of the stories in Tevinter Nights.

I thought The Witcher pretty good, I'm currently on the fourth book and, I doubt I'd like it as much without the Netflix version of Yennefer in my head and Geralt also to an extent.

Reading them definitely highlights the things it did not translate that nicely, but in my opinion it still succeeded more than it failed ultimately, and it's got a lot of room to grow yet.

As with most Series Season 2 and Season 3 will decide whether it's worthwhile.

My concern with Netflix is simple - they are fickle as hell.

They make some good products, and some ok ones, and some absolute sheit too. Working for their productions is similarly variable as well.

If a product doesn't hit their sometimes mysterious criteria for a second season/sequel/follow-up, they drop it with no fucks given. This can be right in the middle of the story.

This isn't just Netflix mind you - despite the "need" to create more content than ever before, it seems many content providers are unwilling to stick with something and give it a chance to grow. It needs to be a smash hit or it goes in the trash. Dumb.

Anyways, proof is in the pudding. Needs good writing, so we'll just have to see on that one lol

God fucking dammit.

This is what I'm talking about :rage:

The rumor said it's already in production...

If netflix is smart, what is not always given, they start at the beginning of the age of the Dragon.

a problem which I also see for the game: The age of the Dragon will end someday.
Then the name Dragon age is over.

I know that a lot of you will not be in my opinion.
an interactive series.
I like new things and to be able to intervene minimally in a series like choices in an RPG game has been floating in my head for a long time.

I'm waiting to see what happens, but I'm happy that someone dares to do it. it reminds me a lot of the lord of the rings.
So i hope i will like it as much as that. Fingers cross.